Introducing autonomous vehicles to urban areas such as big cities and small towns is a serious step that requires a lot of prior planning. But this is not the only challenge you will encounter if you decide to integrate AVs. Here are ten things you must keep in mind.
1. Be Afraid This may sound strange at first, but you will understand the meaning of this rule soon enough. The thing is that new technologies that increase convenience cannot be stopped, whatever their impact on our long-term quality of life is. This means that even though AVs can save millions of lives, we can't know what problems they will bring and we can't predict them either. If you don't believe this, just look at what happened to cars.
2. Be Realistic Another issue with automated vehicles is that they are a heaven or hell scenario. You should know what to expect and what not to expect with them. They can only save lives and function properly when they are fully integrated, but even if there are only a few privately-owned AVs that do not follow the general rules, then a hell scenario is inevitable.
3. Determine the Amount of traffic Contrary to popular belief, adding additional lanes to a road doesn't reduce the amount of traffic. According to many researchers advocating the introduction of AVs, these vehicles will be able to handle more traffic in each street, but there is a number of complications that comes along with this statement. This is why you should first determine the amount of traffic you want to have and then decide whether you still want to integrate automated vehicles.
4. Plan More Suburban Pressure Suburban development pattern does not pay for itself. The tax revenue from low-density places is not enough to replace roads and pipes once they fail. Likewise, cheap autonomous vehicles will not have as great an impact as universal car ownership did. This is why a better policy is needed.
5. Understand Transit Geometry Discussions related to AVs seem to follow only some laws of physics and often ignore simple Geometry. Even though automated vehicles are smaller, they are still cars and are limited in the number of passengers they can hold.
